Dietel, Wade and Jones, architects, 1931

"When asked to describe Buffalo's City Hall stylistically, architect John Wade referred to it as simply as Americanesque, 1927. At other times he called it Babylonian."

More information about the architects

A city hall is an explicit statement about the reverence for the past, the ambitions and pretensions of the present, and a beacon for the future. The city hall tells us where the historical core of the metropolis lies. Location, height, arrangement of interior space and exterior ornamentation -- all these elements point to the inner and outer symbolism of the city as it moves through time. A city hall is the formal announcement of the soul of the metropolis.

-- Arthur Chandler

“The form of every city hall expresses the dominant local ideas of civic power and authority at the time it was built. All that is inside, also is outside [Was innen ist, ist außen], as Goethe observed of all forms.”

— Bayard Coll

"Art was not morally neutral but worked in the service of virtue… Ornament was not crime, but the addition of beauty and instruction to the satisfaction of material needs. Art began precisely where utility broke off. Form was not to follow function, but to transcend it. Any evidence of restraint, understatement, or, worst of all, parsimony, will subvert its intention."

— Donald Olsen, The City as a Work of Art

"Not utility, but cultural self-projection"

— Carl Schorske, Fin-de-Siècle Vienna

"The chief function of the city is to convert power into form, energy into culture, dead matter into the living symbols of art, biological reproduction into social creativity."

-- Lewis Mumford, The City in History

Click the images below for lightbox displays

Old Buffalo City and County Hall (completed in 1876); Andrew J. Warner, architect

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City Hall Facade

(photo by briggsyengineering.com)
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City Hall on Niagra Square with Lions and McKinley Monument

(photo by DIPENdAVE)
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Tower

(photo by Daderot)
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Tower detail

(photo by army.arch*Adam*)
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Elevator doors

Elevator door detail (perhaps depicting the Iroquois leader Red Jacket)

A click here for a 360 VR panorama of the Buffalo city hall elevator alcove

Barrel Ceiling

(photo by Jazzersten)
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"Construction" mural by William de Leftwich Dodge

(photo by hadrian6)
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Lady Buffalo and Native-American inspired ceiling panels

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An explanation of all the Buffalo city hall murals

City Common Council Chambers

(photo by Jeff Givens)
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360-Degree Panoramic VR of the City Common Council Chambers (click to activate)

(photo: Buffalo VR -- click for an interactive 360 panorama)

"The ceiling of the Buffalo City Common Council Chamber is stained-glass, and represents the view of the heavens from Buffalo the date that City Hall was completed. You can see the sun, the moon, and seven other planets."

Wikipedia article on the Buffalo City Hall

Official History of the Buffalo City Hall

Back to the main City Halls of America page